Rail News

Cornerstone Laid for the Rhine-Ruhr-Express Service Depot

Today the cornerstone was laid in Dortmund-Eving, Germany, for the service and maintenance depot being built for the Rhine-Ruhr-Express (RRX) trains. Test operations at the depot are scheduled to begin in mid-2018. In the future, all 82 RRX trains will be serviced and maintained here for a period of 32 years. Siemens will create 75 jobs for the depot and is investing a mid-double-digit-million euro sum in the facility.

Predictive Service and Maintenance

The depot will be fully oriented to the unique digitalised train service and maintenance provided by Siemens. Predictive analyses identify faults long before failures actually occur. To achieve this, the trains are closely monitored in real-time and the delivered data is analysed in a central diagnostics system at the Siemens Mobility Data Services Centre (MDS) in Munich-Allach, Germany. On the basis of these analyses, specialists at the MDS calculate failure predictions and recommend acute or scheduled maintenance to the service team in the new depot.

Michael Groschek, Minister for Transport in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, at the cornerstone-laying ceremony, said:

“We have reached a further milestone. The RRX will revolutionise the state’s rail-based passenger transport, sustainably improve travel conditions for hundreds of thousands of commuters, and set new standards for comfort, throughput and travel times”

Martin Husmann, CEO of Verkehrsverbunds Rhein-Ruhr (VRR) added:

“I’m especially excited for the passengers. Today’s cornerstone-laying ceremony marks an important investment in the future for the 2.4 million people who use our mass-transit rail system daily. We expect the new Dortmund depot will soon make a decisive contribution toward guaranteeing the best possible availability of the new trains.”

Jochen Eickholt, CEO of Siemens Mobility Division, said:

“In Dortmund-Eving, we’ll be taking the service and maintenance of trains into the digital age. We use algorithms to analyse data delivered from the trains so we can fix malfunctions before they actually occur. This way, we can guarantee our customer VRR and all passengers nearly 99-percent availability of our trains. We’re excited to be building this new depot in Dortmund”

Rhine-Ruhr-Express Service Depot

The site of the new depot in Dortmund-Eving covers around 70,000 square meters, roughly corresponding in area to ten soccer fields. VRR owns the property up to the year 2050 through a leasehold agreement with Siemens. The depot complex will include a six-track maintenance building, a warehouse, administration and social building, an outdoor cleaning facility for the trains, an underfloor lathe for overhauling wheelsets, and a diagnostics system for wheelsets. The main building will be around 163 meters long, 63 meters wide and 12.4 meters high. The facility will use around 15 percent less energy than the recommended standard set by the new European Energy Saving Ordinance (EnEV). Around 5.5 kilometres of track will be laid on the property, including the maintenance building. The depot will be located on the site of the former Dortmund-Eving marshalling yard and connected at its north and south end with the main line to the Dortmund railway station, along the Lünen/Münster route.